Supplies

1. Polymer clay (white, black, moss green and raspberry pink)

2. Clay supplies (dotting tool, hobby knife, rolling pin)

3. Metal hooks and ear hooks

Step 1: Step 1: Make the Skinner Blend

Start by making two balls of the pink and green clay. As spoken from the first picture; start rolling horizontally to flatten the balls and combine them together. Fold the clay horizontally and roll the piece of clay out again. Make sure you shape the clay after folding and before rolling in order to keep the right shape. You need the gradient in the middle for the leaves. This technique needs patience and attention as this is not very easy to get right.

You need a lot of folding to get a nice gradient in colours, approx. 20 foldings will be needed.

Step 2: Step 2: Cutting the Leaves

After making the skinner blend, cut little leaves out of the clay. Use the parts that are not mixed again to make another skinner blend, and keep doing this until you have enough leaves (you need approx. 13 leaves per dragonfruit half).

Step 3: Step 3: Shaping the Base

Roll a little ball out of white polymer clay.

Roll out a thin sheet of the pink clay and cover the white ball with the sheet. Cut off excess clay and roll the ball evenly. Cut the ball in half with a sharp knife (it has to be sharp in order to keep the cut clean)

Insert a metal hook on top.

Step 4: Step 4: Attaching the Leaves

Start attaching the leaves to the halves. Start at the edge with 4 leaves overlapping each other.

Then, attach 6 more leaves at the back.

Attach the clay leaves by smoothing the pink side on top of the half-ball. I used a dotting tool for this.

Step 5: Step 5: Final Details

By using black clay, I attached small little seeds on the white part of the halves. I used the point of my hobby knife to pinch out small pieces of clay that were small enough for the dragonfruit.

Bake the dragonfruit halves according to the package instructions of your own polymer clay.

I used FIMO polymer clay, which has to be baked at 100 degrees Celcius (=212 F) for 30 minutes.

Step 6: Step 6: Finish the Earrings

After the clay has baked, pull out the metal hooks (I use a little pincer). Use some strong glue to glue the hooks back in. This needs to be done to secure the hooks from falling out. It takes a long time for them to fall out tho, but they will be more durable this way.

After the glue has dried, attach earring hooks to them and enjoy your tropical handmade earrings!